Quicken is the country’s second largest retail mortgage lender, according to the publication Inside Mortgage Finance. The company says its new product will allow borrowers to be fully approved for a purchase or refinance loan in as little as eight minutes, simply by plugging in some personal details on their computers, tablets or smartphones.

Under the traditional process, most borrowers have to go through several steps: They consult with a mortgage representative in person or over the phone, provide some basic information for preapproval, and then later furnish pay stubs, bank statements, tax returns and other documentation in order to obtain full approval.

Applicants for a Rocket Mortgage need only to provide a few details about themselves to enable the new Quicken platform to pull that data on its own. For example, if you’re applying for a refinancing, once you punch in your home address, the system automatically knows how much you pay in property taxes and homeowners insurance, as well as what you paid for your home. Fill in your birth date and social security number, and the system pulls your income history. No manual uploading of documents is required.

The system analyzes the information, then quickly delivers suggested loan options that are customizable, so borrowers see which rates and terms suit them. Once borrowers have selected a loan, they can follow through by signing the necessary documents online in a secure portal. (The signing of the final closing documents requiring notarization is done offline.)

“The way we’re using data and how much we’re able to calculate and do online — this is brand new to the industry,” said Regis Hadiaris, the product lead for Rocket Mortgage.

But Rajesh Bhat, the chief executive of Roostify, a provider of automated mortgage transaction technology, suggested that Quicken’s new platform isn’t necessarily an industry first. “They’re doing a great job of marketing a capability that already exists,” Mr. Bhat said. “They’re allowing consumers to pull data from trusted sources, which is what we’ve been doing for a year.”

He acknowledged, though, that Quicken’s service is on a much larger scale, which is welcome, he said, because “it creates a benchmark for everyone else to work towards.”

In recent years a number of start-ups have tried to streamline the mortgage-application process, but they tend to be niche-driven operations, and some sell their loans to private investors. These include Social Finance (better known as SoFi), which focuses on low-down-payment jumbo loans for highly qualified borrowers; Sindeo, an online brokerage that operates in a handful of states; and Lenda, an online lender focused on refis in California, Washington State and Oregon.

Jason van den Brand, the chief executive of Lenda, said Quicken’s move toward an all-online approval process “validates that this consumer behavior shift is occurring. Everyone’s gearing up toward this next wave of borrowers.”

But he expressed skepticism about Quicken’s commitment to allowing borrowers to control the process. “They still have this giant call center of people standing by to call you,” he said. “As a consumer, you’re still going to be dealing with a ton of telemarketing in an offline process.”

Mr. Hadiaris disputed that assertion, saying that it would be up to Rocket customers to decide whether they wished to speak to a sales representative.